Pseudotropheus lucerna "Nkhata Bay"
Nkhata Bay — n-KAH-tah BAY (approx.)
The fish
How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.
Read the full Pseudotropheus lucerna account →Specific to Nkhata Bay
- Collection locality & coordinates
- Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
- Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points
Care facts below are the species' — shared with Pseudotropheus lucerna.
The Nkhata Bay population
Pseudotropheus lucerna "Nkhata Bay" is the Nkhata Bay population of Pseudotropheus lucerna, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Pseudotropheus lucerna, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Nkhata Bay fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Pseudotropheus lucerna is a rock-dwelling mbuna from Lake Malawi, a member of the genus that gave the mbuna group its scientific identity and, even after decades of taxonomic splitting into Maylandia, Tropheops and other segregate genera, still anchors the classic robust-bodied, algae-grazing rock cichlid archetype. Its epithet, Latin for lamp or lantern, hints at a bright marking or patch on the body — a naming style common among mbuna described from a single striking field character. Documented from the northern lake, it remains a fish known mainly through field and collection-locality records rather than the general aquarium trade.
Full Pseudotropheus lucerna account →